Union

True Spirituality is very earthy, not otherworldly. – which is contrary to the way many people think about it…

Let’s talk about Christmas and winter for a moment. For many people wintertime is dreadful.
Therefore the winter solstice has long been an occasion for celebration. The darkness and cold, the retreating sun had long inspired terror,and when the sun finally started its slow return ancient peoples marked the event with feasting and fertility celebrations. The symbols of the season - evergreens, holly & ivy, wreaths, are still with us today. And years’ end was marked with a pagan holiday called Saturnalia, a raucous, week-long party.

Christians decided to offer an alternative and began to celebrate the incarnation with Christ’s Mass. Hopefully it would replace Saturnalia. However, due to the excesses and frivolity of the event the Puritans (English Protestants) attempted to ban Xmas. In Massachusetts it was illegal from 1659-1681. In fact, the US Congress stayed in session on Christmas Day from 1789-1851.

Now today there is a certain discomfort and apprehension about the consumerism and schmaltz associated with the holiday. But the central biblical and theological theme, the single most vital element of the event is that Christmas is about the incarnation; this is God’s world and God loved it so much that he came to be here with us. The story of Jesus could not be more this-worldy: a pregnant, an unwed teenager, a troubled fiance, a difficult journey; maybe an inn full of raucous people, a barn full of animals, or cave full of bats; real labor, pain, blood, birth, then shepherds and other assorted hooligans.

Christianity could not be more human or more earthy – God with us – the sacred in the secular. Jesus come into the world, front and center although in a very quiet and unsuspecting way.

Think you're spiritual? One question: are you a human being? If so, then yep, you're spiritual.